(I had a urinary tract infection and two painful styes in both eyes)
However old you get, you can never replace that comforting feeling you get from your mother, especially when you are sick. She calmed me down and gave a list of things to drink, if I could find them at that hour of the night; king coconut water, boiled cumin, boiled barley or aloe vera.
Then after I hung up, she called me up again a few times to add more things to the list.
"MOTHER CAN YOU STOP CALLING NOW I HAVE TO GO MAKE THE BARLEY QUICKLY. I'M BURNING?!" said I, sounding somewhat ungrateful.
Within a day of home remedies, my UTI and styes in both my eyes reduced significantly, something that the 5 days of antibiotics prior to that could not cure. Sure, it could be that it took time for the antibiotic course to finally act. However, once people in cultures like ours become desperate to get better, they tend to mix contemporary and traditional remedies at the same time (against medical advice), so usually, it is hard to conclude which remedy actually cured the disease.
The new and older generations differ in their opinions on traditional medicine like Ayurvedic medicine. The new generation prefers "western" medicine because it is fast acting (at least in curing the symptoms), scientifically proven, quantified with various modern diagnostic tests available to know the status of a disease. The older generation prefers time tested traditional medicine made of herbs and natural ingredients because even though they are slow acting and cumbersome to prepare, it gives little or no side effects and it takes a holistic approach to cure a disease by restoring the natural balance of the body (not by treating just one or more isolated symptoms). While some think that it could be a case of the "placebo effect" for traditional medicine, others swear by its goodness.
Astrology faces similar scrutiny from newer generations. Traditionally, astrology is an important part of our culture starting from the birth of a child, to puberty, to marriage, new businesses, building a new house and nearly every other special event in life. New generations tend to push off astrology as non-scientific and pure quackery! There are a significant amount of fraudsters that prey on the vulnerabilities of people to astrology to make quick bucks, but again like traditional medicine, many resort to it when things in life spiral out of control or fear takes over or because they don't want to take a chance (in case they were wrong not to believe in it!). Could planets actually affect one's personality and is one's destiny precomposed? That's a little hard to accept personally, however, I've found that the general personality descriptions of the astrological signs (e.g. Cancer, Rooster, etc) do seem to be applicable.
Image source: Cartoonstock
Another interesting phenomenon are people who claim to have divine powers to foresee the future or cure diseases that modern medicine can't. Some claim it's their dead family members or relatives that speak through them. Others claim it is someone divine that wishes to help people through them. My mother being a curious creature has been to various such people over the years through recommendations, and I have been dragged along quite unwillingly. When I was younger, I feared that these people would read my mind and expose the secrets I kept inside. As I got older, I wanted to challenge them to expose my secrets and try to observe what might be going on beyond the veil of faith. While it is hard to verify if there is any rational explanation to this occurrence, A skeptic like me would assume these people are good with reading body language of others, convincing speakers and clever in carving out a special niche for a profession. Also, it is easy to see how having a lot of followers can be a huge ego boost to these people, which may even make them mentally imbalanced and manipulative. On the other hand, if a tragedy strikes us, like seeing a loved one battle a terminal illness, we would push aside all our reservations and accept any paranormal miracle that promises a cure.
Intuition is another thing that is hard to explain with Science. That "gut feeling" telling you of things to do or not to do, which turns out to be right later. It is more convincing than superstition. It continues to guide us in the decisions we make in life, if we are sensitive enough to feel it. It might be a level of psychological sensitivity that is present more in some brain circuits than others.
People who believe, continue to believe. Whether it is religion, superstition, traditional medicine, astrology or paranormal phenomena - it is hard to convince people of the opposite of what they believe, even in the presence of evidence. Also, the belief levels of people in these things we can't explain tend to be in a varying scale. While some are hard core believers, others may be somewhere in the middle (like me) or completely disbelievers. Again, it appears so due to the nature of how people are psychologically wired.
Not counting factors like socioeconomic status, it is possible that our beliefs and rationality ratios change with the various stages of life. Older people tend to be more religious, superstitious and believing in the inexplicable. Maybe older people make peace with the conflict younger people have in whether to believe or not in these things. There is also the possibility that Science, as a growing field, is yet to uncover explanations for some of the things we find hard to believe at present.
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